Mayor Williams Announces Anti-Discrimination Executive Order

In a ceremony in his office on Tuesday, October 3, Mayor Anthony Williams
announced his executive order mandating compliance by all District agencies
with the DC Human Rights Act. Former GLAA President Craig Howell, who had
pushed for the order after GLAA discovered that several District agencies
had failed to include sexual orientation and other protected categories in
their notices of non-discrimination, was commended by Mayor Williams, DC Council
Government Operations Committee Chair Kathy Patterson, and OHR Director Charles
Holman.

Representatives of gay, Asian, Latino, and African-American organizations
attended the ceremony and posed for photographs with the Mayor, Councilmember
Patterson, and Mr. Holman. In addition to Howell, gay community members
participating in the ceremony included GLAA President Bob Summersgill; DC Coalition
co-chair Charlotte Young; the Mayor's acting GLBT liaison, Wanda Alston; the
director of the Mayor's Office of Boards and Commissions, Ronald King; DC Human
Rights Commissioner Peter Schott; UDC trustee Peter Rosenstein; the founder of the
District's gay rights movement, Frank Kameny; former GLAA President Rick Rosendall;
and GLAA member Kevin Davis.

This Executive Order provides uniform language to be used by District agencies
in all notices of non-discrimination of any kind including race, religion,
national origin, sex, age, sexual orientation and all others covered in the
DC Human Rights Act of 1977. The order also places monitoring authority in
the Office of Human Rights as opposed to the Office of the Secretary. Howell
commended the Mayor, Mrs. Patterson, and Mr. Holman for their efforts in getting
the order re-issued. A similar order was originally issued in 1980 by then-Mayor
Marion Barry at GLAA's urging after a similar problem of District agencies
repeatedly failing to include all the protected categories in the DC Human
Rights Law of 1977 in their notices of non-discrimination.